Double vision
August 1st 2009

The problem with double deck trailers, says Transdek MD, Mark Adams, is that everybody knows they don't work. Everybody, that is, but the retailers turning over a £billion a week. Could there be a correlation? Brendan Coyne reports

People have been trying double deckers for the last three decades – long enough to convince them that 'double deckers don't work'," says Transdek MD, Mark Adams, fresh from winning the Motor Transport award for innovation. "Everybody tried them and everybody hated them apart from the finance guy. Our rationale and focus is to convince them otherwise…" Adams saw the double deck future about five years ago installing small lifts on a Tesco site. The retailer was just beginning to fit double deck lifts to service its new double deck trailer fleet. But traditional lifts, which require extensive civil work (digging, moving storm drains etc.,), meant a lot of hassle: three months' worth, according to Adams.

So he decided to develop a range of lifts that required no civils, could be installed within 24 hours and moved whenever a warehouse reconfiguration was required. Five years on Transdek is an award winning company that this year will turn over £12m. But when retailers make their suppliers move to double deck infrastructure, that figure could soar.

And Adams believes it is only a matter of time before suppliers receive their orders.

Given that most retailers are running about 16t payload in standard trailers, and that double decking would deliver an additional 66 per cent capacity for around £5k more compared to the cost of a new single-deck trailer, why aren't retailers, never shy of laying down the law, doing so now? Adams, naturally, thinks they should be rather more blunt.

"It has to start with the retailer. It cannot be driven by suppliers because there is no point suppliers investing in the infrastructure if their customers don't have the pod at the other end. But if the retailer has the infrastructure and the supplier doesn't, the retailer is paying too much for their goods." By way of example Adams cites a yogurt company, which has been asked by Tesco to fit some lifts. "The savings, both in financial and carbon footprint terms, are phenomenal," says Adams. "The company runs single deckers from Greece every day, bringing 26 pallets of yogurt. The pallets weight half a tonne, so they have a 13t payload – which isn't highly efficient. If the yogurt company went to a European type double decker, they could add 14 extra pallets – or seven tonnes – onto the trailer.

It's a complete no brainer, but the yogurt firm is holding out for a three year contract before making the investment." While contractual reassurance might seem reasonable from a supplier perspective, Adams says this kind of problem is exacerbated because the retailer transport section is outside of the buying department.

"It needs somebody even more senior to say to the yogurt firm: 'Stop arguing and just do it.' I think the retailers will eventually demand compliance, but we're in the infancy of that stage." For those that do chose to implement double-decking, Adams says retro-fitting is Transdek's forte. The firm will visit the site, then tailor warehouse design modifications to ensure double deck trailers can be accommodated. In all, the job will take 12 weeks from initial site visit to final hand over.

Following design and manufacture, Transdek preassembles all lifts at its north Nottinghamshire factory (four UK manufacturers produce separate units under license, and the Transdek plant does final assembly and testing), and then arrives on site. A team removes the existing dock shelter (which is left on site should the customer wish to move the lift). Within two hours the trucks and cranes are gone, and a three-man team has the lift fully configured by the following morning. "The people at Boots and Tesco's didn't believe we could do it so swiftly," says Adams. "But we did." It was a Boots installation that saw Transdek win the Motor Transport award.

According to Adams, the firm was previously running 12 trunks a day from Greenwich. By switching to double deck, it now only needs to run seven. Boots will have 220 double deckers on the road by the year end, and while it will not allow precise numbers to be printed, the savings will be seven figures.

Given that Boots is reshaping its distribution model (taking out some outlying warehouses), the fact that lifts can be relocated to other sites is also a huge benefit.

While the government is currently busy wasting money investigating longer trailers, Adams believes that in future, "anyone who is running vehicles without carrying weight," will have to change to double decking – or go bust. "It's almost criminal when you see how little weight some people are carrying, with the problems we have of congestion, fuel, CO2 emissions. That has to change." Should it do so, then Transdek, with its rapid-fit solution, is well placed to benefit.

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